


Apologies, Baby Brother

by Abbytheweird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt, Mourning, Mycroft POV, Platonic Love, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbytheweird/pseuds/Abbytheweird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft sits to his desk on a distinctly gloomy afternoon, his laptop closing away from John Watson's final blog entry, and decides to write a parting note of his own. This is what he writes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apologies, Baby Brother

**Author's Note:**

> As I found myself bored in an English class this morning, I began to jot this down.

You always did prefer Wilde. Of all the things we argued over, Poe and Wilde was the easiest to take. You always said Poe's prose was dull. I argued that Wilde was dreary.

But the thing we'd always agree on was Carroll. I suppose his realities were even weirder than ours.

Do you remember? Remember when you'd crawl beneath the cover, convinced I didn't know that you'd been crying?

On particularly bad nights, I wouldn't bother to read the stories. It would just be the poems. It's a shame that Father's bad nights were so often than even now I can recite each one by heart.

You were adamant that you were just as grown up as I. You'd never admit just how much you enjoyed the stupid voices I gave the characters. I never admitted how much I adored them, either.

I remember when you told me that you hated him. You seemed convinced that I'd be angry with you for such a thing. I hope my silence and the fact that I allowed you to stay curled up against me for the rest of the night, your unruly curls sticking up against my night shirt proved you wrong.

Do you recall when I bought you Treasure Island? You wore an eye patch every day. Unless, of course, Father was home. Then you're put it on your teddy. We even made that map together. I can still remember how exhausted you were, but you stayed up all night with me, staining it with Mummy's least fine tea. I was very nearly late for my maths exam the next day. Not that I cared.

I'm still sorry I went to university and left you. I don't know why I thought you'd be okay. You were barely 12 when I left; still but a boy. So was I.

At first you were so relieved to see me when I came back from school for the holidays. I was convinced you'd snap me in half from the way you hugged me that day, crushing my ribs with your tiny arms. But then you started to hate me when I left, and resent me when I returned because you knew I had to leave again. Betray you again.

I'd have resented me too.

It was around my second Christmas home from Oxford that you diagnosed yourself as a high functioning sociopath. I'm sorry I couldn't convince myself to believe it, and I'm sorry you cried again that night. 

The bed seemed much bigger and colder when you did not come to me demanding to hear The Walrus and The Carpenter.

It still hurts and makes me feel sick to my stomach when I think of that phone call.

I can remember it as clear as day. I was 22 and in my quarters, avoiding the biting cold of a February morning, and hunched over a copy of the Communist Manifesto, shaking my head in despair for the reality of Marxism. It was then that the silence of my studies was shattered by the ringing of my phone. I, until this day, thought I'd never hear anything more terrible than 'you brother's overdosed.'

How wrong I was.

I remain grateful that the Detective Inspector found you. Back then, he was but a lowly constable. With your help, he flew up the ranks. He did things for you that I never could. He helped you in ways that I could only dream of. He never told you how often I contacted him to check up on you, to see just how well you were doing. You knew, of course. You called it 'spying' and 'nosy brothers who can't keep themselves to themselves'... and some much nastier things that I do not care to mention.

But with that work you lost yourself even more, didn't you? You were no longer my baby brother; just a machine. A machine who worked in such a way that would push both eating and sleep out of the window.

I never wish ill fortune upon those who are undeserving, yet I'm glad the good doctor was injured when he was. That coincidence in the form of an old friend pushing you both so forcefully together was nothing short of a miracle-if one believes in such a thing.

In many ways, he brought my baby brother back to me. In others, he took him further away.

He still hates me, you know. More than even when we first met. He blames me for what happened to you, and so he should. I know I do. 

Slowly, yet completely surely, he gave you life outside of your job, and you, in your own way, returned the favour. Never have I seen such a deep platonic love, and I doubt I ever will again. Together, you made the greatest duo, and it broke him when he became an uno once more.

Of all my regrets, baby brother, it is that I never grew up enough to swallow my pride and apologise; to sit you down and to tell you all I have encapsulated in this letter. I often thought that maybe if I said something first, you'd let me in again. But I suppose regrets and caring are weaknesses. At least you always claimed they were. I had been inclined to agree, but I had no choice in the matter when it came to you. A defect, perhaps. 

I can feel my emotion becoming overwhelming. I shall end this note here before it becomes just all that too much to bear. 

I loved you, and I'm sorry it ended this way, for all my apologies will do, baby brother.

MH

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst I'm about 99% certain that Mycroft knows Sherlock isn't dead, I wanted to write this.


End file.
